The UN has the responsibility to lead the anti-cholera effort in Haiti, says PIH policy adviser Louise Ivers in the New York Times. She calls on the UN to finance the upcoming vaccination plan that will be unveiled on February 27th by Haiti's ministry of health and looks to the $648 million peacekeeping budget as a source of significant financing.
On Thursday, the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, rejected a legal claim for compensation filed in 2011 on behalf of cholera victims in Haiti. Through a spokesperson, Mr. Ban said the claims, brought by a nongovernmental organization, were "not receivable" because of the United Nations' diplomatic immunity.
Regardless of the merits of this argument, the United Nations has a moral, if not legal, obligation to help solve a crisis it inadvertently helped start. The evidence shows that the United Nations was largely, though not wholly, responsible for an outbreak of cholera that has subsequently killed some 8,000 Haitians and sickened 646,000 more since October 2010. The United Nations has not acknowledged its culpability.
Now, as the cholera epidemic appears to worsen, Mr. Ban and the United Nations have an opportunity to save thousands of lives, restore good will -- and, yes, fulfill the mandate that brought the organization to Haiti in the first place: stabilizing a fragile country. The United Nations should immediately increase its financial support for the Haitian government's efforts to control the epidemic. ...
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